AN: This is something that I just got very inspired to write recently. I've just caught up on Glee (I couldn't bare to watch after Cory…) and I want to delve into Rachel's feelings, while assuming that she's always had unconscious feelings for Quinn throughout the timeline of the show. So needless to say, it's veering off after Finn's funeral and will be AU.

Chapter 1: The Patient Ferris Wheel

October 17, 2013

From: Quinn Fabray

Rachel,

I'm not exactly sure how to apologize for this. I've screwed up before but never this bad.

The Metro passes have gone unused and most are probably expired but I still haven't been to see you. And I can only imagine that not experiencing you in New York City is akin to never seeing you home. I am so sorry for that. I have explanations and excuses for almost everything but I won't give them to you. I think I know that you don't want them and they would only be extra weight, which you don't deserve ever, especially now.

I can't seem to think of anything to say to you now. I didn't show up. I can't imagine you needing me at this point. But I should have showed up. I've never told anyone this; I've never felt that there was anybody that I could tell. But when I watched your train leave from Lima, after I saw your heart break in his car, I promised myself that I'd be around. For you, Rachel.

I never could keep a promise, especially not to myself.

I'm so sorry.

That's maybe the seventeen-thousandth time I've read that. It still doesn't make any sense.

I saw Quinn once after high school; she talked me out of doing a nude scene in a stupid student 'film' with Santana. We had dinner together, we danced at some club and got all sweaty, but really, that was it. I hadn't heard from her before then and I didn't hear from her after. And as if I hadn't been grieving enough when I got her email, she just reminded me of something else I almost had but never really got to fit my fingers around it.

And I'm doing better now, I guess. At least in the way that I'm not so sad. However, I've gotten very angry. Nobody knows. I'm still all smiles and I sing all the time, those same old show tunes. I go to school and I'm really good at it. Kurt and Santana and I have rowdy evenings in with a couple bottles of wine and Apples to Apples. It's nice; things are almost back to normal - unless it gets too quiet. Then I get very angry and I have no idea how to deal with anger… I never had to figure it out. Growing up, getting slushied and being called horrendous names, none of it ever bothered me much. I had my fathers and I had my dream - that was all I needed.

Until people noticed that I'm a person; that I'm not always Rachel Barbra Berry, ON! ALWAYS! I'm insecure and I have feelings that can't always be expressed through Broadway musicals. I saw these same traits in a few of my classmates, some former bullies; I showed them mine even though they had never intentionally showed me theirs. Sometimes it takes a jump into the scariest parts of yourself to get what you need from a relationship.

My advances were pretty much successful. Some of them took a while to really catch, but we got there. Finn, Puckerman, Kurt (my gay boyfriend!) and even Santana had all come around in their own times. But perhaps the person that was hardest to sell was Quinn. She didn't trust people, for good reason, and she hated a part of me that I still don't think I understand. But she got there. She was there with me, I swear I felt it. And then I was on that train, leaving Lima, all my friends, my family, Quinn… And that was the last I heard from her for eight months. Sure, we had that weekend after I decided once and for all that my body is a privilege to see, but then she was gone again. And she stayed gone for eight more months, until October, that awful month.

Now it's January, a whole new year, and I've done my grieving and I've been so sad. But now that's over with. NYADA is fantastic, my roommates are the best I could ever hope for and I'm so single. Like, so so single. It's wonderful. My life is on track, my emotions don't sky rocket or plummet anymore. I'm good. But every time I read this email from Quinn I just feel so angry. I start thinking about how let down I feel. I remember the moment I arrived at McKinley last October and saw everybody's sad smiles and got all their warm hugs, minus Finn's. And that broke my heart in that moment; re-broke my heart since I'd gotten that terrible phone call from Carol. Then through my blurry, teary eyes, I noticed that somebody else was missing. And I feel apart.

I can't tell you why I waited to fall apart until that moment, when I realized Quinn hadn't come, but it's been eating at me since. The grief, the sadness, the… death, I can and have gotten over all of that. But the timing of breaking point in Lima still confuses me, makes me angry. So angry.

"That email is from hella days ago, Berry."

I instantly smiled. Santana is just so… Santana. I've come to love her like… I don't know, I just love her a lot.

"And it's from the princess! Ooh!"

Oh god.

"What's it say, lady?"

"Nothing. It just says that she's sorry she hasn't made it around lately," I grit out through my teeth.

"Uh huh… And that explains nothing."

"What are you talking about?" I sigh exasperatedly. This is just like Tana. 'I love her, I love her, I love her.'

"You go to you laptop, you read that thing and then you're pissy the whole rest of the day."

"What?"

"And this happens, oh, I don't know, sixteen times a week?"

"That's ridiculous, Santana. The most I've read this email in one day is three times, and then I didn't have the stomach to read it the rest of the week. Your number is simply unrealistic."

"Ah ha!"

Damnit.

"Why do you read it if it gets you so hot and bothered?"

Ugh.

"Oh, maybe that's why. Did Q-ball finally confess her undying love for your sweet, troll ass and it just makes you so. Fucking. W-"

"Enough!" I yell out, a little louder than I had intended. "Enough," I reiterate quietly, calmly, as I smooth down my skirt under my legs and shut my laptop.

"Whoa, sorry, Grandma Berry," Santana says sarcastically with both her hand palm open near her head.

"I shouldn't have yelled."

"No shit."

"I'm sorry," I look at her pointedly, "about yelling. But what you were saying simply holds no truth." She raises her dark eyebrows at me. "You think I walk around here some days in hazy, frustrated lust?"

"Well-"

"No, Tana, I don't. I walk around here some days after reading that ridiculous excuse for an apology, trying not to snap at you for something Quinn isn't giving me."

Santana looks at me like she wants to say sorry, but we both know that's not her thing. The look is enough, we've both silently decided. She starts walking over to me again and asks, "What the hell does that thing even say?"

I keep my hand firmly on top of my closed laptop and her dark eyes shoot to mine, glaring. Valiantly, I hold that glare with one of my own for a full three seconds before Tana's mouth quirks and I know she's winning. So I sigh loudly and step off the chair in front of the computer to let her sit. She stretches out her arms like she's about to write a novel and I scoff at her.

"Untwist your panties, Berry. I gots this."

I stand behind her, trying desperately not to look over her shoulder and read Quinn's email yet again. I hold out for about a second.

The same old anger starts itching underneath my fingernails and behind my neck. Only this time, unlike every time save the first time, I can feel tears stinging my eyes. And I don't know why. I think I cried that first time because I was surprised by hearing from her at all, after everything. It was like she was trying to tell me something that I was just refusing to hear. And now it's happening again.

Santana's quiet voice shakes me or shivers me.

"Whoa." She turns her legs to the same side of the chair so that she can look up at me comfortably. "Did you ever email her back?"

"No," I answer simply.

"You didn't call? You didn't fuckin'… write or something? Nothing?"

I scoffed again and I'm sure my face was all twisted up in confusion and anger. "No, Santana. I didn't call."

"Why?" She asked sincerely.

I felt eyes squint and subsequently a tear rolled down my cheek. "I'm not going to be the one to call. Not this time," I said as I pretty much stomped out of my room, er, section. "She had so many chances and she just didn't care!" I yell back at Santana, only to realize that she's stomping right after me. "Is this a joke?" I ask harshly as I spin around to face her surprisingly soft features. "Why are you mad at me? Why are you mad at me and not… her?" I bite it out and a few more tears spill out. What is happening right now?

"I'm not mad," Santana says quietly as she takes a stool at the bar in our kitchen. "I just thought…" She trails off.

I don't think I have any idea what's going on.

"You just what?" I ask, trying to be gentler.

"I thought you and Quinn… I don't know, got each other or some shit." She shrugs a shoulder.

"I used to think that too," I say as I take the stool next to Santana. "But she's hurt me, Tana. She's hurt me so much." I hate how my voice breaks.

"I know she did, Rae. But she just…"

"No." I interrupt. "She never visited, she never called. All she gave me was that stupid email. She didn't come to Lima for Finn!" I finally just let my tears loose and with them, my shoulder droop and I feel my face scrunch up. "She couldn't even be there for me…"

"For Finn?" Santana asks gently as she covers one of my hands in both of hers.

"Yes… God, I don't know." This doesn't feel like anger anymore. "I thought she'd be there." It felt like disappointment. "For all of us." It felt like a new hole in my heart. "I just thought she'd come for me."

It took a while for me to calm down and stop crying. Luckily, before Kurt got home. I love him (gay boyfriend, duh) but he would've just told me to write Quinn back with a simple, 'Screw you.' And I'm just not ready for that, for some reason. No matter how reading that email makes me feel, no matter how Quinn has made me feel, I still keep reading it. And I still let it get to me. It's because Quinn always gets to me, she always has. And now I'm left alone in my room to ponder as to why.

I mean, I mostly know why she meant so much to me in high school. Quinn was the Queen of Lima. At least, to me she was. Even when she got pregnant, even when she called me nasty names - I always saw her with this glow around her, sitting up on a high pedestal. She was so much smarter than anyone knew; she felt so much more than any of them knew. She just was more. And I genuinely thought that I could lover someday if she'd only let me. I used to think that if she just dropped her guard, for me, then we would have been dear friends our whole lives. I knew she had it in her. But she was always so scared. Sometimes more than anything else, she was terrified. And I saw that.

But now, after everything, I just cannot figure out why I still want her. Quinn promised weekend visits; I got none just to visit, just to be friends. She promised we could be friends; I have nothing from her. Just that email where she tells me that she apparently promised herself to be around; I honestly didn't even know what she was majoring in at Yale. She wasn't around and I wasn't around. She just wasn't here.

I can't even tell if I don't want to call her or if I just don't know what I'd say if I did call.

"She really is?!" I hear Kurt squealing from the living room area of the loft. I can't hear Santana's response, assuming Kurt's not on the phone. But then I hear, "Good. I've been really wanting to see her since… you know."

Then I shoot off of my bed and rush out toward my roommates. Sure enough, Kurt looks positively content while Santana tries to stand so that her face is awkwardly away from Kurt's gaze.

"Santana? What's wrong?" He asks. "I thought you'd be excited to see her.

"I am," She responds after a long moment, neither of them noticing my presence just yet, "It's just, this morning…" What about this morning? "Berry's not gonna like this."

"What? Why?" Kurt asks.

"What aren't I going to like?" I finally chime in.

Santana twirls around quickly and her eyes bore into mine. For just a moment, she looks almost… morose? But then her eyes steel and she quirks a smirk at me. "Quinn's coming Friday."

My breath falls out of my mouth and I momentarily forget to suck more in. This is unreal. I can't see her now. No, I can't see Quinn until I sort at least some of this out. I don't know how I'll behave. What if I make her uncomfortable? Why am I worried at all? She should be worried. But my pulse is racing. Why? Why? Why?

I close my eyes, like a long blink, and quietly suck in a deep, deep breath before exhaling through my nose. "That girl has always had impeccable timing." I say lightly and put on my best 'show smile.' Let's do this. Rachel Berry: ON!

AN2: So that's the beginning. It turned out a little shorter than I thought it might. I think I'll shoot for longer chapters, but let me know what you think of the length and of everything else. J